Chris has some excellent analysis that surprised me. For example, he contends Winn's a bargain at $8 million for this year and about the same for 2009, given his offense and defense. I'm a bit skeptical that Winn would be worth $16 million a year as a free agent, based on his 2008 stats, but I found it great reading. Here are some of his comments (boldface is mine) --

-- Winn’s defense added about +1 wins to his overall total and even though he might be borderline for RF with his bat, he’s a better than league average hitter and his defense is very, very good. Randy Winn would be valued around $16.3M on the free agent market for his ‘08 season. The Giants are only paying Winn $8M this year, meaning that they are getting nearly double the performance for what they are paying.

--Bengie’s overall line of: .292/.322/.445 doesn’t look spectacular but when you consider it’s coming from the toughest position to play on the baseball diamond, it looks a lot better. Bengie’s sOPS+ as a catcher is 116, meaning that he’s 16% better than the league average catcher in the National League. Bengie could be an attractive solution for a team that might need a catcher in the offseason. He’s in the final year of his deal and he’s hitting quite well for his position. I think the Giants would do well to listen to offers for Molina’s services. Molina is a player that I was totally wrong on, when he came to the Giants his age and weight had me guessing that he’d be injured or ineffective by year 2 of his deal, Bengie proved me wrong and then some. Molina is valued around $11M on the FA market and he’s set to make $6M in ‘09, a very nice deal for any team.

-- Fred Lewis should head into ‘09 as the starter in LF. On a team like the Giants, one that is transititioning, Lewis is the perfect player. He’s cheap — making league minimum this year — and he’s adding positive value. In fact, Lewis is valued around $9.7M on the FA market for his ‘08 season and the Giants are only paying him 400K. That’s a difference of +$9.3M for the Giants. Good teams do not drastically overpay for talent and Lewis is a great example of getting production for very cheap.

A winter of discontent

Henry Schulman of the SF Chronicle reports on Brian Sabean's plans for 2009. I'm not impressed. Sabean's talking about making a run at CC Sabathia -- a somewhat ridiculous idea given how lousy the Giants offense was and Sabathia's asking price -- and telling Aaron Rowand to do a better job after sucking for the last two months of the season. ("The brass believes Aaron Rowand was spooked by the big ballpark and tried to do too much in his first year.") Getting a decent hitter like Dan Uggla or Jorge Cantu would make sense but you can bet that the Fish will say they want Matt Cain.

Isn't now -- after 4 straight losing seasons -- perhaps a time to consider promoting a few blue-chip prospects to the big club such as Bumgarner, Posey, Villalona and Alderson?

It sounds as if Sandoval, Burriss and Lewis will get to start in 2009 but they still haven't made up their minds about Schierholtz. Better yet would be getting Sabean fired after running this team into the ground with a 5th straight losing season already looming in 2009.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Small victories for 2008

-- With Lincecum, they had one of the best pitchers in baseball, who kept them from being a complete disgrace, despite the handicap of having one of the worst pitchers in baseball (Zito)-- They went 9-9 against the Dodgers-- They lost 90 games, fewer than a lot of people expected and fewer than the Mariners, Nats, Orioles, Pirates and Padres.-- They broke in a record 17 rookies, including a few who can play (Pablo Sandoval, Sergio Romo)

UPDATE -- (inspired by McCovey Chronicles): they actually played respectably down the stretch with August at 15-14 and September 13-13-- Tim's final line: 227 IP, 265 K, 2.62 ERA, 18 W

Though I despair over his OBP and DPs, Molina's the one veteran who's performed up to expectations offensively. He's now got either 94 or 95 RBIs and 16 HRs, a .321 average with runners in scoring position -- damn good production from a catcher.

It's not a total surprise, given that the Giants have had 17 players make their MLB debuts this year. Here's who was in the lineup in the 7th -- Catcher Steve Holm, pitcher Billy Sadler, first baseman Pablo Sandoval, second baseman Ryan Rohlinger, shortstop Ivan Ochoa, third baseman Conor Gillaspie, left fielder John Bowker, center fielder Eugenio Velez and right fielder Nate Schierholtz.

The Dodgers were the last team to manage such a feat -- oddly enough with a team that was about to go into the playoffs and get beaten by the Phils.

That should pretty much assure that Brandon Webb wins the Cy Young. Somehow, it seems appropriate that the Rox -- a team that's inflicted so much pain on the Orange and Black -- would be the ones to bring down the hammer tonight and make Giants fans wonder if Tim will be able to get back to where he was earlier this year.

Every time Bochy (with Brian Sabean's approval) insists on the team's top young pitchers going deep into games -- when the team was mathematically eliminated weeks ago -- they are increasing the chance of serious injury exponentially. They are too stupid to realize this and need to be fired NOW.

Monday, September 22, 2008

A modest Wall of Fame proposal

Looking over the Wall of Fame list and seeing the inclusion of Johnnie LeMaster made me wonder why such pivotal figures as Jack Sanford, Dave Dravecky and Joe Morgan aren't on the Wall. The rules say 9 years as a Giant or 5 years plus an All-Star game -- which will keep Hal Lanier off the wall, fortunately -- but I say let's make an exception for Billy Pierce.

1. The offense is LOUSY and2. how valuable it is to have a decent closer like Brian Wilson. Andrew does a nice job of analyzing this, going so far as to address the contention that the importance of closers is overblown. He makes the non-sabermetric claim that what closers do is sometimes hard to quantify and a bit intangible. Boldface is mine:

If Brian Wilson had jogged to the mound, walked Manny Ramirez and served up a two-run homer to James Loney, the effect would’ve been worse than a loss. Much worse.When that cycle repeats, a team’s belief begins to slip. On a subconscious level, they’re less motivated and perhaps less focused. “Why rally back when we’re just as likely to blow it again?”The opposite happens when you have a lock-down closer. “If we can just scratch out a run…”No wonder Manager Bruce Bochy had this to say about Wilson: “You look at the silver linings of a season and he’s one of them. He made an All-Star team and established himself as a closer – one of the best closers – in the game.”A closer is like a security blanket. And security blankets are not rational. They’re emotional.When a team doesn’t have its security blanket, good luck getting it to finish its strained peas.

One of the sweeter games of the year. As usual, Matt Cain pitched well and got no credit; Schierholtz made several fine catches in right; Rowand got the rally starter in the 11th and Velez never stopped hustling to get on; and Aurilia re-captured a bit of glory with the game's only RBI. Ishikawa, Ochoa, Winn, Rowand and Molina all made fine plays in the field.

Dodger magic number stayed at 5. How does it feel to drop 2 of 3 at home to a team that "sucks," Dodger fans?

The best thing -- Pablo Sandoval continues to mash. He pinch hit a 2-run double in the ninth to make the score respectable, but only after Angel Berroa had given the Giants an extra out but the game was out of reach, thanks to the lousy pitching along with Aurilia and Velez botching groundballs that led to Dodger runs.

-- The New York Yankees were desperate for a big bat earlier this year; indeed, the Bronx Bombers have been held to three or fewer runs 65 times this year (just one time less than the offensively challenged Toronto Blue Jays!). They opted for Richie Sexson, who was just released from one of the worst-hitting teams in the AL. Here is a team that traditionally does anything to get to October and desperately wished to make the postseason in Yankee Stadium’s final year. They were desperate for offense and hitting with runners in scoring position and they inked Sexson?-- The Toronto Blue Jays have 20 losses this season when holding the other side to three or fewer runs—among those, there are 12 games that could be described as outstanding pitching efforts (defined as two or fewer runs over nine innings or three or less in extra innings). The Jays lost two 10-inning games where the held the opposition to three runs, and had 12-inning losses where they allowed one and three runs. They have seven other losses where they were beaten despite allowing two or fewer runs. Ten of the 19 losses were inflicted by the clubs just ahead of them in the standings: the Rays (5), the Yankees (3) and the Red Sox (2).The Jays had 143 opportunities in those 20 games (with runners in scoring position) and managed just 14 hits (.098) and presumably, some of those hits accounted for the run scoring that the Blue Jays did manage to generate. The Jays actually hit into more double plays in those 20 losses than they had hits with runners in scoring position. --Would Barry Bonds have made a difference in those 20 games? Instead, the Jays were forced to trot out the likes of Brad Wilkerson, Kevin Mench and Matt Stairs, who batted .221/.337/.341 with just five HR after mid-May. But not Barry Bonds.Had the Jays been able to turn eight of those 20 losses into wins they would be atop the wild card standings. The decision not to sign Bonds might have been the decision that cost the Jays a berth in the playoffs. If the Blue Jays were following the seeming collusive understanding not to sign Barry Bonds, then did the organization in effect throw the 2008 season?Marvin Miller would say yes. It would have been a deliberate decision not to field the best team possible—to allow a chronic problem (run scoring) to fester all season rather than remedy it by signing Bonds.-- The Jays lost a grand total of 27 games this year where they held the opposition to four or fewer runs—27 losses from simply not having enough offense and yet all year one of the best hitters in the NL in 2007 remained available.And ignored.Why?

Friday, September 19, 2008

Zito makes it look easy

I got to see the reason why Barry Zito's a rich man as he dominated a Dodger team that's been so hot that they've gone from being a disappointment to a near-lock on making the postseason. From where I saw it in the second deck, Zito made the Dodgers look silly all night long -setting them up with curves and changes, then sneaking in fastballs on the black.

It's great to see the Dodgers suffer -- yet I couldn't help but wonder where this guy was when the Giants weren't already 16 games under .500.

A Greek Tragedy in Orange and Black

Sometimes I think the Giants could be the perfect Greek tragedy. The performance would be full of strikeouts, bad hitting, and a comedy of errors and at the end of the night we would learn a very important life lesson; don’t start defensive liabilities in the outfield.

.... Velez has been an interesting player to debate since he tore up the Sal League as a grown man in 2006. The tools are exciting — speed most noted — but he’s rarely put them together at the BLL (Big League Level). How much patience the Giants continue to exercise with him is mystery that I’ll leave up to them. You can’t take too much from one game, but last night’s OF gaffe probably didn’t have the Giants hurrying to pencil him into their longterm plans..... It’s easy to look back on the bad moves managers make — Bochy starting Velez in LF — and criticize them, but Bochy’s submission to the almighty ‘Matchups’ did him in last night. With the left-handed Randy Johnson on the hill Bochy opted to start the switch-hitting Velez in LF over the lefty-hitting Dave Roberts. We all know that Roberts has never hit LHP, career line of: .237/.318/.310, but Velez isn’t killing the ball when he’s facing southpaws, either. He has a career minor league line of: .227/.278/.338 which looks drastically worse if you translate it to the bigs via MLE’s. I’ll spare you the displeasure but I’m talking 400 OPS bad. In a short 50 AB’s against LHP in the majors, Velez has only hit: .208/.296/.250. The difference between Velez hitting and Roberts hitting off of Johnson is nonexistent. When you have two guys who are going to hit the same, I’ll take the one that can play a stronger defense. That’s Roberts. He’s no longer a CF option but he can play an above average LF defensively.

I suppose it's useful to find out that Velez isn't an MLB quality outfielder, since it appears that Bochy's given up trying to win games. But then, of course, we have the extended pitch counts for Lincecum -- as Bochy gives every indication that he wants to win the game by leaving Timmy into the bottom of the 8th, so he can surrender a game-winning hit to Adam Dunn. I believe that there's a gun named Brian Wilson who hasn't pitched since Sunday -- and probably could have pitched both the 8th and 9th. But Bochy now seems obsessed with getting Lincecum the highest possible pitch counts. It was up to 118 tonight, right after he hit 138. I heard Dbacks manager Bob Melvin comment that he didn't think Lincecum had his best fastball.

So now we have Webb having won 21 games while Tim's record is now 17-4 -- when it should have been 18-3.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Giants gift wrap Cy Young for Webb

It's a cliche that players sometimes try too hard and hurt their performance, but that seems to be a possible explanation of why the Giants gave away tonight's game in Phoenix as Jonathan Sanchez imploded despite being given a 3-0 lead before he even threw a pitch. With 21 wins for Brandon Webb, it's going to be difficult to convince voters to go with Tim Lincecum -- even if he shuts out the Dbacks tomorrow. Andrew Baggarly's report in the Merc-News quotes Sanchez beating himself up over giving up a double to Webb -- "That's big because I want Timmy to get the Cy Young,'' Sanchez said. "Everybody is saying Webb might get it, but Timmy has better numbers.''

1. Matt got himself back on track after several rough outings and2. Brian Sabean is a day closer to being fired

The answer to my rhetorical question is 14. Henry Schulman's game story for the SF Chron notes that Cain's got a habit of drawing no support -- For the seventh time this season, the Giants scored no runs for Cain when he was on the mound. In seven other games, they scored once.This is one of the worst on July 11-- Cain shut the Cubs out for 7; Walker gave up a 3-run bomb in the 8th for a 3-1 loss.

Doug Davis pitching for ArizonaR Winn doubled to deep right center.N Schierholtz grounded out to pitcher.R Aurilia popped out to first.B Molina flied out to center

As for Bochy, he's decided that he doesn't really want to win games. Even with 16 pitchers on the roster right now, he refused to bat for the very marginal Brad Hennessey in the top of the 6th.

Doug Davis pitching for ArizonaA Rowand grounded out to shortstop.P Sandoval safe at second on throwing error by third baseman M Reynolds.E Velez reached on infield single to third, P Sandoval to third.O Vizquel popped out to shortstop.B Hennessey struck out swinging.So rather than bring in a fresh arm in the 8th to face the top of the order, Bochy The Idiot decided to let Hennessey give up a 2-run homer to Dunn:

Indeed, in the last five seasons, only two Major League pitchers -- Livan Hernandez and Jason Schmidt -- have thrown more pitches in a game than the 138 Lincecum amassed aagainst the Padres. Hernandez was the last to total exactly that many, on June 15, 2006, for Washington against Colorado. Hernandez also has logged four of the highest five pitch counts of the last five seasons: 150 (June 3, 2005), 145 (July 31, 2005), 143 (Sept. 11, 2004) and 141 (June 27, 2004). Schmidt threw 144 in his May 18, 2004, one-hitter for the Giants against the CubsWhat Haft DOESN'T point out is how Schmidt's career is basically over and Hernandez is essentially a guy who gets employment because teams are desperate.

And speaking of the dumbness of the front office, there's a Baseball Prospectus piece dealing with the stupidity of Lincecum's 138-pitch outing last night. Here's some choice nuggets from Gary Huckabay (bold is mine) -- If Giants fans wonder why their team is in such dismal shape, last night was a microcosm of it. This organization hasn’t shown any ability to look past a single game, much less past a season and towards, say, potential stability and success. Last night wasn’t even a joke. It was a farce. To those of you who will feel compelled to write in and say “Tim didn’t want to come out,” my response is pretty simple…My four year old wants to eat a bunch of ice cream too. It’s kind of my job to make sure he doesn’t. And it’s kind of Bochy’s, Sabean’s, Baer’s, and the entire occupancy of the Giants front office’s job to keep completely moronic things from happening. Clearly, they’re not up to the task.

Friday, September 12, 2008

What a relief for the Giants

Brian Wilson just nailed down his 38th save of the year after blowing back to back saves on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Orange and Black got homers from Ishikawa and Sandoval, which gives the team 88 HRs for the year -- by far the lowest in MLB. With 15 games left, I'm skeptical that they'll make it to 100, which would make this team the first in 15 years to not get into triple digits.

What was a bit depressing was listening on XM to the one of the worst announcers ever, Ted Leitner of the Padres. Leitner is like an annoying party guest (or my idiot brother in law) who think he's sooooo much smarter than everyone else that he just can't stop talking nonsense. In the midst of the Padres' disgusting 5-run first inning, he declared "The Padres are just as good as the Giants, but they've had bad luck with the health of their starting pitching" or some such nonsense.

We were in Club level 221 as his long triple rolled past the hapless Dbacks -- who are now looking like dead meat on a stick, beaten in back to back games by the skinniest (6-foot-1, 165 pounds) guy in MLB. Adam Dunn misplayed his fly ball in the 3rd into 2 runs; Brandon Lyon gave him a belt-high fattie in the 9th; the Dbacks managed only one run off the immortal Brad Hennessey, who was so bad earlier this year that he got exiled to the minors for 4 months.

The only downside to the Dback beatdown is that the Dodgers benefit. The Dbacks have only themselves to blame -- they could have signed this guy named Barry Bonds, who would have done far more to help their team than Dunn has without having to give up prospects. It's fitting that they've probably gagged away a shot at the postseason. The team and its fans (who can't be bothered to sell out the park at playoff games) have received far more good fortune than they deserve.

Where were you when I needed you?

Barry Zito offered a glimpse of the pitcher he ought to be tonight, befuddling a Dbacks team that's in the process of gagging away the NL West to the Dodgers. He managed nine strikeouts and spent most of the evening nicking the corners. I was in 214 amid plenty of the Giants faithful -- and that's who was at the park tonight, what with no Tim Lincecum pitching -- and that was the most common topic: Where was this guy in April and May when we really needed him?

Memo to Bruce Bochy -- this is your most valuable asset. If he gets hurt, this is what you're going to remembered for. Stop playing with fire. And ignore the dingbats who boo you when you take him out.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Here's what happens when you keep dingbats on the payroll

As the Giants face the embarrassing prospect of a fourth consecutive losing season, there's a warning sign from 3,000 miles away. Or however far Pittsburgh is from San Francisco. Thanks to losing the last two games at Mays Field, the Pirates have racked up their 16th consecutive losing season, which ties the record for a sports franchise set by the Phils between 1933 and 1948. The Pirates haven't had a winning season since Barry Bonds was a Buc; ironically, Brian Sabean's trade of Matt Morris last year to the Pirates may ultimately wind up being the first step back to pulling the Pirates out of their funk since it got Dave Littlefield fired. Sabean actually had the brains to make a deal with the one GM who was just as much of a dingbat.

In a long but interesting posting by Charlie on Bucs Dugout, the front office gets the blame-- none of the usual victimhood excuses such as "we're in a small market:Littlefield was one of the last really awful GMs in an era where many were quite good. Add that fact to the terrible ownership and the ten previous years of losing that Littlefield wasn't responsible for, and you've got a recipe for exactly what happened: the Pirates have now tied the 1933-1948 Philadelphia Phillies for the longest losing streak in the history of professional sports.The Giants have a lot of advantages the Pirates don't -- a far bigger revenue base, a much bigger payroll and the good fortune to play in what's often been the weakest MLB division in recent years. The amazing perfomances by Barry Bonds covered up Sabean's incompetence for many years but now that incompetence is here for everyone to see. Without a change, the Giants risk going down the same road as the Pirates.

In any case, it's a delight to see names like Schierholtz, Burris, Sandoval and Ishikawa in the middle of the biggest rally of the year. After being no hit for the first three innings today, here's what the Giants did in the 4th --

Saturday, September 06, 2008

What was McClain doing in Fresno?

Why did Giants have to endure four solid months of abysmal play by Jose Castillo, who's a less expensive version of Pedro Feliz with less power? Meanwhile Scott McClain was hammering the ball in Fresno. And tonight, McClain hit his second homer in three games.

Friday, September 05, 2008

The same nightmare for Giants fans

It's been a long time since I was in college but I can't seem to shake the nightmare where I realize that1. It's 2 a.m. and2. I signed up for a class at the start of the quarter, then forget about it but now I realize that3. the final is at 8 a.m. so4. I need to start studying now but I don't have the books so5. I have to break into the bookstore6. At this point, I wake up with a mild sense of relief that I'm no longer in college

Bissinger starts by saying "I don't like Barry Bonds" and talking about how he didn't want Barry to break Aaron's record. Then he says something's different now -- But last week’s news trickling out of the endless investigation of Barry Bonds has caused me to feel something for him I never thought possible: sympathy. And beyond just sympathy, outrage over what has turned from a prosecution into a venomous persecution of someone who, no offense to the pastime purists, is just a baseball player. And I am beginning to think that federal authorities in charge of the pending criminal case against him for perjury have exactly the same attitude many sports fans do — we don’t like Barry Bonds, and since we don’t like him, let’s teach him a lesson he won’t forget. Let’s ruin him, which the federal government is fond of doing in all too many instances.Here are a few other nuggets. Boldface is mind --

-- Threatening family members is conduct worthy of the mafia, not the federal government, particularly in a case that is ultimately inconsequential beyond sensational headlines and another round of “I Hate Barry” frenzy. Protecting the sanctity of baseball? Protecting the sanctity of sports? It’s way too late for any of that self-righteous nonsense in SportsWorld. What Anderson has been forced to go through already, spending more than a year in prison on contempt charges for refusing to testify about Bonds before a grand jury, is sickening in its mercilessness. Once again, this is not some case involving a drug kingpin smuggling thousands of kilos of cocaine into the country. This is a case hovering around performance enhancers, which dozens if not hundreds of baseball players used. -- He was hailed as maybe the greatest player ever in the history of the game, until he became the pariah that he is today. In fact, more than just pariah: it seems pretty clear that he has been blackballed by the league this year despite statistics last season that included 28 home runs, 132 walks and an on-base percentage of .480 in only 340 at-bats. In the stretch-run for the playoffs, there isn’t a team that can use him? Of course there is, but his conspicuous absence smacks of collusion by team owners regardless of denials by Commissioner Selig. The players’ union smells stink, and so do I. -- Obviously, the government’s case against Bonds is weak, or it wouldn’t be embarking on the witch hunt of doing everything possible to squeeze Anderson to testify. But enough is enough. Leave Anderson alone. Leave Bonds alone. Let them deal privately with what they did or did not do. If the Feds want to earn our taxpayer dollars, they can send a SWAT team to my hometown of Philadelphia to reduce the homicide rate that is turning swaths of the inner city into another Baghdad. In the hierarchy of issues that are important in this country, steroid use in baseball has become a bottom feeder. And prosecuting someone because you don’t like him isn’t justice but the complete miscarriage of it.

So the Giants now have another 5-game losing streak. It's their fourth of the year of this magnitude. They had one between May 4-9 and two six-game nightmares during May 14-19 and July 6-12. Zito goes today after a truly crappy outing. The Rox are likely going to be all fired up about making another run like last fall so perhaps they'll be over-eager with Zito. Unfortunately, Aaron Cook (16-8, the reverse of Zito's mark) is also pitching.

Let's stop the whining about AT&T Park

Andrew Baggarly of the Merc News has a long blog post about Orange and Black stats; he addresses the whining that he's hearing from players and coaches about how hard it is to hit at Mays Field (for purposes of clarity, I've used the official name in the headline). Turns out that the offense is just as dismal on the road --–And for all the Giants hitters (and coaches) who complain about China Basin, get a load of these numbers: .260 home average, .257 road average; 3.77 runs per game at home, 3.96 runs per game on the road; 38 HRs at home, 42 HRs on the road; .386 SLG at home, .377 SLG on the road.

I would guess that the average runs per game is slightly higher on the road because the Giants don't bat in the 9th inning at home if they're ahead.